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Weekly Economic Commentary

Monday February 20, 2017

While many analysts are awaiting specific details of President Trump’s fiscal agenda before amending interest rate and growth forecasts for the US, some pundits are already talking at least three US Federal Reserve rate hikes this year with the first possibly as early as next month.

Conversely, the outlook for Australia remains that monetary policy will stay on hold over the course of this year with the next move (up) in rates not until early 2018 (refer chart below). However, with any move by the US Federal Reserve, expect local market rates to rise in anticipation of similar moves here and as the global and domestic economic outlook improves.

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